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COX BAZAR: Dozens of Rohingya refugees are believed to have come from two ships stranded at sea for weeks as they tried to reach Malaysia and landed off the coast of Bangladesh on Saturday, leaders of the Rohingya community said.
Bangladesh has refused to allow the two trawlers carrying some 500 people to land on its territory despite UN calls to allow them to enter as a heavy storm strikes the region.
Security officials said a small boat carrying about 40 people, including “hungry” women and children, had landed.
Local people alerted the coast guard and 29 people were detained and about 10 fled, police and security officials said.
Bangladesh officials did not confirm that the Rohingya were from ships stranded at sea.
But Shobbir Ahmed, a Rohingya in one of the refugee camps in southeast Cox’s Bazar, in southeast Bangladesh, told AFP that two of his daughters who had been on the stranded ships were among those who disembarked on Saturday.
She said the women, ages 19 and 17, had boarded a trawler two months ago trying to reach Malaysia.
Ahmed said he paid a Rohingya broker about $ 2,230 to make the trip.
The security officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the rescued Rohingya would be sent to Bhashan Char Island in the Bay of Bengal, where Bangladesh has built shelters for some 100,000 refugees.
The proposed relocation to the island in the cyclone-prone coastal belt has drawn criticism from rights groups and sparked protests from the Rohingya.
There are around a million Rohingyas in camps in Bangladesh. Most fled a 2017 military offensive in Myanmar, and many prefer to go to the Muslim-majority Malaysia, where there are more job opportunities.
Bangladesh Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen said last month that Bangladesh would not allow Rohingya ships to enter its territory.
His statement came after more than 60 Rohingya died in a boat that waited at sea for two months before it could land.
UN Human Rights Commissioner Michelle Bachelet made an urgent appeal to Bangladesh to change its stance.
Thousands of refugees died in the Andaman Sea in 2015 on rickety fishing vessels that attempted to reach Malaysia and Thailand.
